Tom Karas suspected of ferrying money to Tony Mokbel overseas

Chris Vedelago, Cameron Houston

Melbourne underworld associate Tom Karas, who owes the Tax Office $47 million, has been under investigation for allegedly passing money to drug kingpin Tony Mokbel while he was on the run overseas.

The Sunday Age can reveal that Mr Karas, who Purana taskforce detectives have accused of being a key money launderer for the Mokbel drug empire, smuggled €211,100 ($A390,000) in cash on a flight to Europe just months before Mokbel arrived in Greece in late 2006.

Mokbel, who is currently serving a 20-year jail sentence, became Australia's most wanted fugitive after skipping bail in March 2006 and fleeing to Europe while facing serious drug charges.

Illustration: Matt Golding.

Law enforcement agencies have spent years tracking down the associates who abetted Mokbel's life on the run, which included funnelling cash to the fugitive and running his family's international drug operation, known as The Company.

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Concerns about Mr Karas' trip have come to light as he fights to retain control of a multimillion-dollar business and property empire that tax officials and police say was built on the proceeds of crime.

Mr Karas has admitted he withdrew €211,100 from the Melbourne bank account of Christos Karaglanis, a Greek national who had purportedly invested millions of dollars in Australia through Mr Karas' ''legitimate'' moneylending, property and stock operations.

On August 27, 2006, Mr Karas boarded a flight at Melbourne Airport claiming he was going to Greece to give the cash to Mr Karaglanis as interest repayments owed on a $1 million loan made to a Melbourne nightclub operator. ''The interest I collected on behalf of Christos was returned to him when I travelled to Greece,'' Mr Karas claimed in a 2011 affidavit. ''I declared the converted funds at the airport and recall being told by the customs officer that I was fine to continue.''

But a Sunday Age investigation has found Mr Karas instead travelled to Rome first class to meet two associates of a Melbourne gangland identity. On August 29, Mr Karas is believed to have received a phone call from Melbourne and told to go to the Hotel Bernini Bristol where the satchel of money was handed over. He was also instructed to photograph the transfer, with the picture taken by his brother-in-law, Nick Meletsis.

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing in Rome, with Mr Karas being photographed standing next to a Swiss Guard in St Peter's Square at a time he would later tell authorities he was in Greece. Mr Karas returned to Australia, via Greece, a few days later.

But suspicions about the trip were eventually raised by law enforcement authorities investigating Mr Karas' extensive business dealings with Horty Mokbel, de facto head of The Company in Tony's absence. Horty was sentenced to six years' jail for drug offences in 2010.

''[Tom Karas] is a primary person of interest to the joint special project conducted between the serious non-compliance section of the ATO and Victoria Police's Purana taskforce investigating those who may be involved in, or benefiting from, Melbourne's organised crime scene,'' ATO officer George Khouri said in a 2011 affidavit filed in the Supreme Court.

The ATO has slugged Mr Karas with a $47 million tax bill and frozen his personal and business assets. Investigators also discovered that the Greek ID card of Christos Karaglanis, a truck driver and seasonal olive picker from a small town in far-eastern Greece, had been reported as stolen to the European police agency, Interpol.

Mr Karas, a cousin of Mr Karaglanis, allegedly used his identity to make multimillion-dollar loans and investments in the property and share markets in a bid to launder drug money. ''Karas' tax indebtedness arises in part because he received, but did not disclose, proceeds from the use of a false identity,'' Mr Kouri said in the affidavit.

Attention also focused on the $250,000 discrepancy between interest repayments Mr Karas collected from the nightclub owner and the amount of cash he took to Rome. But Mr Karas continues to claim in court documents that he made the investments on behalf of Mr Karaglanis and hand-delivered the interest payments to him in Greece.

Victoria Police, federal police and the ATO have declined to comment for privacy and operational reasons.

But The Sunday Age understands that authorities were ''very interested'' about the circumstances and timing of Mr Karas' August 2006 trip as the extent of his alleged financial connections to Horty Mokbel were uncovered. Sources say a link between Mr Karas' Rome meeting and Mokbel was considered but the final destination of the €211,100 in cash has never been determined.

The Purana taskforce spent more than a year piecing together Tony Mokbel's escape after he was captured in Athens in June 2007 following a global manhunt. Mokbel arrived in Greece just before Christmas 2006 after a 12,000 kilometre boat journey that was the result of months of meticulous planning by a cohort of local and international contacts.

The whereabouts of Mokbel's then partner, Danielle McGuire, during the time Mr Karas was in Rome, is also an open question for authorities. Italian police lost track of Ms McGuire, a convicted drug dealer, in Rome in late July 2006. She was not seen again until Mokbel was captured.

Mr Karas, who continues to operate as a high-interest money-lender, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Mr Meletsis has threatened The Sunday Age with defamation if his name is published.

Ms McGuire has refused to comment on whether she knows Mr Karas. ''Why would you ask me that? Go away,'' she said.